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Ask HN: How to drive user aquisition for my new social networking application?

1 points by starter ↗ HN
I'm developing a new social network: one that could change the way people communicate for the better. Good applications launch every year but that's never enough.

What are your suggestions on how to drive users to join, invite friends & come back often?

IDEAS Launch at one university or large network only. Using an "invitation only" waiting list strategy. Forcing users to invite a few friends at sign up.

Any more?

3 comments

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anigbrowl
Reward signups with 'early adopter' or other status indicators. Don't force people to invite a few friends, that feels like multi-level marketing and pretty much guarantees introverts won't use your service because they want to kick the tires a bit and get used to it before lending their names to it (it's embarrassing to recommend something that may turn out to be a waste of time).
starter
I like that. An early adopter icon shouldn't be too hard to automatically assign. I'll need to figure out some time of launch strategy first. Like, Network A first followed by Network B etc. Early adopters in each network would love that kind of recognition!

Glad I asked about the forced invites. Thanks!